


Where I End and You Begin

by Lisztful



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5x16 episode coda, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-12
Updated: 2010-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisztful/pseuds/Lisztful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5x16 episode coda. Dean comforts Cas, and there is lots of schmoop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where I End and You Begin

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a prompt on the Castiel-centric [meme](http://maychorian.livejournal.com/202989.html?thread=3661037#t3661037). "I want Castiel to start giving up hope, then Dean jumps in with something like "Look, I know you expect some profound shit, but I can't give you that. Just hold on for now, ok?" After 5x16, I thought this prompt would make a great coda! Thank you Erda for the awesome beta read! Title from a Radiohead song.

"Stay here, Sam," Dean says, and he goes after Castiel.

Outside it's cool, the deep chill of recent nightfall. Dean stops for a second, just breathing in the crisp air. The air in heaven tastes strange, almost electric, like the buzzing feeling of too much caffeine. In contrast, the air here seems sweet and refreshing.

He half expects Castiel to have disappeared, but he's still there, leaned up against the Impala. He's not wearing his coat, and his tie's gone too. His dress shirt is unbuttoned, hanging loose to expose a white t-shirt that clings closely to his chest. He looks a strange combination of tense and slumped down into himself, and it hurts to try to sort out which body language corresponds to which elements of Castiel's despair.

Dean can't stand it when people walk up behind him without his knowledge, just one of many small anxieties he's acquired since hell, so he offers Castiel the same courtesy he'd want for himself, letting his boots crunch hard on the gravel of the motel parking lot. "Hey," he says quietly, and leans up against the Impala beside Castiel.

"Hey," Cas says back. It's a mimicry of Dean's tone, but he doesn't seem to be aware of it.

"I thought you'd be gone," Dean says. It feels helpless, the words coming out before he has a chance to stop them, and he flails around for a joke, something to dispel the tension. He's had enough dirty realizations for one day. One life, really. Nothing else comes to mind, though, so he stays quiet.

"It's," Castiel hesitates, "Becoming more difficult. I needed to rest."

"Okay," Dean says, and tries to pretend that their one remaining weapon losing his powers isn't a terrifying thought. "So take it easy."

Castiel nods. "I killed Jimmy. When the archangel came, he didn't survive."

Dean glances over at him. "What about the meat cravings? I thought you said that was Jimmy."

Castiel shrugs. "In a manner of speaking. This body is still human. I retain Jimmy's mortal experiences."

Comforting is so not what Dean does, but he tries anyway, swallowing. "You didn't kill him. It wasn't your fault."

"I-" Castiel exhales heavy and slow. "It's not that. I've killed before, when I was ordered to. I never questioned it. The good people were going to heaven, going home, and the people going to hell were-" he laughs darkly. "Evil."

There's too much in that statement, all too tightly wound together for Dean to unravel. He laughs, awkwardly. "Nothing's ever as easy as you want it to be."

"No," Castiel agrees. "I'm sorry for his family. Before, I wouldn't have thought that. It wouldn't have meant anything to me, that his family missed him." He sighs. "That they loved him. And now I'm alone in this form, and it is becoming difficult to see it as anything but my own. To see myself without it is equally challenging."

Dean swallows over the sudden, vast lump in his throat. Cas is warm beside him, a heat that feels so very human. It's confusing to feel something like that from Cas, who's so very not human, or was. His touch always feels so solid, though, not just Castiel reaching to him through some sort of artificial form. It was always real, in one way or another. Whatever that means.

Now, Castiel's posture is different, less hitched and hesitant. It's the same power he always had, but now he's not containing it, not holding it within. Dean wonders if Castiel's reservations were a concession to Jimmy, if Jimmy knew what his body was doing, if he could talk to Castiel. It's an unsettling line of reasoning, and not terribly fruitful, but he doesn't want to ask, either.

Instead, he shifts closer, brushing against Castiel's sleeve in a gesture that isn't exactly asking for comfort, or offering it, but almost could be. Castiel makes a quiet noise that could be grateful and leans gently into the touch. He looks terrified, and it's a strangely open expression for him.

"I'm afraid this is my fault," Castiel says, after a silent moment. "I'm terrified that this is all my fault. That I made him leave." He looks upward as he says it, indicating the him in question.

"You hang out with me and Sammy, and somehow you think the apocalypse is your fault?" Dean laughs, a sound that comes out unintentionally sharp. "Man, that's rich."

Castiel stares down at his hands, his finely boned fingers luminous in the darkness. His profile cuts a pale swath through the indistinct mass of shadows, illuminated only by a distant motel room light. Dean's never been the type to wax poetic over beauty before, but something about Cas always shakes him to the core, makes his breath come quick and harsh and presses down hard against his chest. He's used to it by now, to tamping down these rushes of helpless want in order to focus upon whatever myriad of other things he's trying to deal with. When Castiel is like this, though, still and quiet and almost glowing, it alls feels uncontainably vast.

He lets his arm fall more heavily against Castiel's, motivated by a half-desperate recklessness that feels as hopeless as it does electric. The air seems charged with something, with possibility, maybe.

Castiel turns toward him, the shifting fabric loud in the still night. He's close, so close that it feels as though he's sucking in the air from off Dean's lips. His expression is so painfully open and pleading.

"Why?" Dean says, and it comes out low and gravelly, almost a whisper. "Why do you think this is your fault?"

"Don't you understand?" Castiel says quietly. "It's you. It's always been you. I've never disobeyed him, not for anyone. I never even wanted to. But now there's you,

and-" he exhales shakily, reaching out to place his hand on Dean's shoulder. His palm fits easily over the scar he'd imprinted there, finding it deftly and precisely despite the layers of fabric hiding it from view. "-When I put you back together, I saw you. I saw your fears, your greatest depths. It amazed me, the beauty and pain of my father's creations. I've held it deep within me ever since, the anger and-" he fumbles as though searching for the words, "-disbelief, that someone who so enthralled me could spend his earthly existence so filled with fear and torment, and loneliness. I think even in that moment I loved you." He lets out a sharp breath and his body goes loose against Dean's side, a sudden tired slump.

Dean bites down hard on his cheek, his hands fisted tightly at his sides. It's too much, too much for one day, and it's all warring for attention inside him. He feels fifteen again, sitting in a basement in Rhode Island, watching a movie with Lacey Morris and knowing he was going to kiss her, but not exactly how to get from the knowing to the actual kissing. It's a moment in which, if he acts on the impulse, everything will change. He just doesn't know if that's bad or good.

"Cas," Dean says quietly, What do you see, when you're in heaven?"

"Heaven doesn't always look the same," Castiel says slowly. "Sometimes it's memories, sometimes dreams or hopes manifested. Once, my heaven was being home amongst my brothers and sisters and basking in the warmth of my father's love."

"And now?" Dean asks. He tries to keep his tone light, but he isn't sure it works.

"Now," Castiel says carefully, "I see you, teaching me to fish. There's a dock, a vast lake, trees, sometimes a cabin. Sometimes we cook food on a fire." He laughs darkly. "I never thought about how my heaven involved eating, until I started getting the cravings here on earth." His eyes are downcast, and his whole body is bent inward, as though he's bracing himself for a blow.

In that moment, everything comes into focus, and suddenly it all feels so stupidly easy, despite the way Dean's whole body is shaking.

"Hey," he says, and reaches out to wrap his hand around Castiel's chin, drawing his gaze upwards. "I'm not going to lie and tell you I got any answers. I don't know what to tell you about the God stuff, or whose fault this is, if anybody. I can't help wih the human stuff, because it's the only thing I've ever been. I'm furious at Sam and mad at pretty much the whole world, actually." He squeezes his eyes closed, forcing his breaths slow and steady before opening them again. It makes him want to cry, how perfect and vulnerable Cas looks as he comes back into focus.

"But," Dean continues, and even to his own ears his voice sounds like it's about to crack. "There's one thing I can do, okay?" He raises a hand to Castiel's jaw, the other still warm against Cas' faintly stubbled chin. "Look, all that stuff? I-" he spends a moment trying to figure out how to say it, then gives up, settling for, "Me too." It sounds unbelievably lame, and then there's nothing for it but to lean forward and close the remaining distance between them, to take a shuddering breath and kiss Castiel, stifling a gasp against the warmth of his mouth.

He's imagined it before countless times, and he'd always thought, idly, that Castiel would be shy and hesitant to start. He isn't, though. He's eager and pliant, shifting easily to fit himself more closely against Dean's body. It feels good, the heat and solidity of him, the weight pressing over and around him and somehow, inexplicably, releasing the band of pressure around Dean's chest even as it steals his breath away.

"Dean," Cas says softly, and his hands come up to bracket Dean's face as he whispers it again and again, half gasping. It sounds wondering, almost worshipful, and Dean is filled with a sudden disbelief that this is something he gets to have, this beautiful creature who sees so deep within him and only loves him all the more for it.

It must show on his face, or maybe Cas just knows him too well, because almost before he knows what's happened, Castiel's wrapped all around him, so tangled up that Dean can't decide who's holding, who's comforting who as they balance precariously on the hood of the Impala. This is what love's supposed to feel like, he realizes, when you want their happiness as much as your own, so much that you can't tell where yours ends and the other person's starts. Where it doesn't matter, because if he's unhappy, what's the point? It's terrifying, but it's also solidly, unquestionably right, the last piece of a puzzle he hadn't even known he'd been trying to solve.

"It's getting cold," Cas says softly, drawing Dean closer. It's really night now, that time when the moon is so shockingly bright that the morning feels only a breath away, even though it's really more like hours. It isn't an answer to everything, whatever this feeling is, or even to most things. But maybe in the end it sort of is, Dean thinks. Maybe it isn't an answer, a solution, but it is a place deep inside him that's all filled up with something bright and warm and new, and for now, maybe that's enough. After all, there's always time to think about the apocalypse and everything else tomorrow, and every day after that. They can think about all of it together.

"It's okay," he says aloud. "We'll keep each other warm."


End file.
